Bad fur day?

The original Cheezia was about as scintillating for the gaming taste buds as a supermarket own brand light cheddar, so it's a relief that its sequel is tangier, if in a slightly processed way.

The main reason for this is a switch from casual puzzling to casual, physics-based platforming, with Gears of Fur aiming for those who find Sonic CD a little too nippy for their tastes.

Danger Mouse

While the heroes of Cheezia have, understandably, fallen asleep at the controls of their cheese production line, the Evil Kiwinel bird sneaks in and pilfers their secret recipe.

One of the mice, Manu, decides to give chase, but because he's lazy he decides that actual running would be too much effort. Instead, he climbs inside a discarded gear and rolls off in hot pursuit.

There are two worlds (one free, one bought via a small in-app purchase) to guide Manu through, with the first taking place mainly in the dingy factory. Later levels move outside and inject some welcome colour into the game at the same time

Developer Nordic Solutions Systems admits in the Google Play description that Gears of Fur is inspired by the “spirit of Mario and Sonics”, and there’s ample evidence of this in the Super Mario Bros 3-style hill-strewn landscapes and endless rows of collectable gold coins.

There’s even an occasional downhill run or half-hearted loop-de-loop, so Sonic won’t feel left out.

Simply being able to ape the look of genre classics doesn’t mean you can design levels like Miyamoto or Sonic Team did back in the platforming glory days, though.

The 16 stages are all seriously short, lacking any sense of flow or ingenuity, and they resort to tiresome archetypes like lava pools and fans that propel you slightly upwards.

Some of the most irksome traits of early platformers are strangely recycled, too, like not being able to see what’s above or below you until it, inevitably, kills you.

Lacking flavour

Even so, Gears of Fur never puts up much of a challenge. Aside from ambling ground enemies to bounce on and the odd bee buzzing around while you making trickier jumps, there’s little actual threat to overcome.

The controls rely on Cordy-esque arrows and a sole 'jump' button that robust enough to rarely let you down and, unless you tumble into an unseen lava pit, it’s easy to breeze through the levels.

Being able to roll up vertical surfaces helps, as do a smattering of power-ups that slow time or give you temporary shields or a speed boost.

With death not being much of an obstacle until the final stages, and the levels being mostly linear (with directional arrows always waiting to point you towards the end), you’re forced to fall back on the allure of collecting coins and magical scrolls (which don’t do anything) or trying to beat the time limits to boost your final star rating (out of, unsurprisingly, three).Unripened

Admittedly, Gears of Fur gets most of the platforming fundamentals approximately right, with cute characters, cheery tunes (well, one cheery tune looped endlessly), and some reasonably sharp Unity-powered HD visuals.

But it’s just not as refined as the vintage Marios and Sonics it aspires to. There's precious little inspiration, here - just a series of genre staples trotted out to sustain your mild enthusiasm for the hour it takes to complete.